A federal judge has ruled that former Greenwood School Superintendent Montrell Greene was denied his constitutional right to a hearing before he was terminated by the school board three years ago.
Decision in Montrell Greene lawsuit
Senior U.S. District Judge Glen H. Davidson in Greenville granted Greene’s request for a summary judgment, meaning that the judge found no reason to hold a trial on the merits of Greene’s lawsuit.
The only issue now left to be decided at trial is what damages Greene should be awarded against the school district and the three board members — Deirdre Mayes, Randy Clark and Samantha Milton — who voted to fire him.
Greene is seeking $5.5 million in compensatory and punitive damages.
“I am pleased with the results of the judgment that has been handed down. And I’ve been patiently waiting for this type of judgment to be rendered,” Greene said Thursday.
Greene was hired as superintendent in 2013 with a three-year contract at an annual salary of $146,000. His contract was extended twice for an additional year, based on performance evaluations.
In 2014, however, the Mississippi Department of Education released an audit of the district that listed 22 violations of state process standards, accused the district of reporting inaccurate information, alleged that board members improperly interfered in management of the district, and accused Greene and the board of bullying district employees. The district was at one point threatened with a state takeover.
That same year, two administrators — Greenwood High School Principal Percy Powell and Assistant Superintendent Mary Brown — contested Greene’s decision to fire them, resulting in public hearings in which grievances against the superintendent were aired. The decision to uphold the dismissal of Powell was upheld by the school board. Brown’s case was in limbo at the time of Greene’s firing on Jan. 4, 2016, which occurred following a shakeup on the board with both Mayes and Clark being appointed in late 2015.
Brown was subsequently reinstated by the school board. This year, she was chosen to be the superintendent of the Greenwood Leflore Consolidated School District, which is preparing for the state-mandated merger of the city and county school districts on July 1.
Davidson initially dismissed Greene’s lawsuit, agreeing with the defendants that Greene should have appealed his firing to chancery court. Last year, however, a three-judge panel with the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed Davidson’s decision and agreed with Greene that federal court was the proper jurisdiction.
In a 12-page ruling delivered on Monday, Davidson said that Greene had been denied his due-process rights for a hearing prior to his termination.
He rejected the claims of the board members that they were prohibited from giving Greene a pre-termination hearing by a Mississippi law that states a “school superintendent whose employment has been terminated under this section shall not have the right to request a hearing before the school board or a hearing officer.”
“As the Fifth Circuit already stated, that reading is plainly wrong,” wrote Davidson. “The statute does not prohibit the board from providing a superintendent with a pre-termination hearing; it only limits the ability of the superintendent to request as a matter of right a post-termination hearing.”
Davidson also rejected the argument of the three board members that they should be immune from civil damages because they believed their actions in firing Greene and denying his request for a hearing to be legal.
“Government actors cannot obtain qualified immunity by clinging to an interpretation of state law that obviously violates clearly established constitutional law,” Davidson wrote.
Milton declined to comment Thursday about the judge’s decision. Neither Mayes nor Clark could be immediately reached for comment.
•Contact Gerard Edic at 581-7239 or gedic@gwcommonwealth.com. Contact Tim Kalich at 581-7243 or tkalich@gwcommonwealth.com.
